


Old Photograph

by LeeMorrigan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 80s flicks, F/M, Memories, Old photograph, Pizza, Sarah Rogers - Freeform, Steve Gets a Hug, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve is still looking for Bucky, Tron - Freeform, Willow - Freeform, slightly based off the comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeeMorrigan/pseuds/LeeMorrigan
Summary: When the Avengers Tower is attacked, Steve loses his most precious possession- a photo of his mother. After learning of it, a friend and former SHIELD agent works to get him a new copy, with a little help from JARVIS and Natasha.





	Old Photograph

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place roughly sometime between AGE OF ULTRON and CIVIL WAR. Inspired by a nerdy friend telling me about when a bad guy destroyed the only photo Steve had of his mom, and how it hurt Steve to lose it.   
> As far as trigger warnings, there's an explosion, mentions made of hearing aids being damaged, and characters getting trapped by falling debris during the attack on the Tower. There is also mention of a rescued dog and the poor shape it had been in when Steve and the OFC found it behind their favorite Italian place. But the doggie grows up to be a healthy, happy pup - I PROMISE.

Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Bruce ran into the Tower. Steve and Natasha arrived first, barreling through the front door to be greeted by a terrible sight. Not only was the entire first floor wrecked with broken furniture and ruined light fixtures throwing sparks, there were injured people everywhere.

Natasha spotted one woman she knew to be a front desk lady that Pepper had just hired a couple weeks ago. Single mother, GED, two kids, and had lost her husband in a car accident two years earlier. Nat ran over to the woman, Lisa, and began working to help her.

“Lisa?”

The dark-haired woman nodded, reaching to take Nat’s offered hand.

“What happened? Where are you hurt?”

“Got clipped by something…falling down. I don’t know what it was but… heavy. Hurt.”

Nat helped the woman sit up, scanning over her for other injuries besides the bruised cut on Lisa’s forehead.

“Three men walked in, all in suits. Looked normal for Stark business. They were checked, scanned, and then the security guys just came out of nowhere, and suddenly the three men weren’t guys in suits anymore. They were… terrible, monstrous looking things! They had claws and sharp teeth, and they screamed. Then shots were fired, the three were moving around so fast, I couldn’t keep track of them, but I followed the protocols. I hit the panic button to call more security and lock down the entry hall, then I went to slip into the back room, so I could avoid being locked right here, and… The next thing I remember, there was a man in a messy uniform checking my pulse, then I heard you.”

Natasha nodded, listening carefully. The team had been away when they heard the Avengers Tower had been attacked. Unfortunately, they had not been able to just jet off back to the Tower. Tony and Rhodey left to go defend the Tower, leaving Nat, Steve, Clint, and Bruce to handle the small alien attack in Pennsylvania.

“Do you think you can stand up?”

“Yeah, just… slowly.”

Nodding, Natasha slowly guided Lisa to her feet. Casting a look over at her teammates, she found Steve had gone, Bruce was helping two security guards carry a badly injured man to the one functioning elevator, and Clint was helping another man limp towards a usable chair. She had no idea where Rhodey or Tony were at.

“Jarvis!”, Nat called as she helped Lisa towards the elevator, intending to take her to the infirmary Tony and Bruce had built for the team.

“Yes, Ms.Romanov?”

“Where are Tony and Rhodey?”

“Mr.Stark is currently going through security footage, trying to identify the attackers. Ms.Potts was injured and is being treated as we speak. Col.Rhodes is helping injured staff members on the third floor.”

“Tell them we’re here, please.”

“Already done, Ms.Romanov.”

~*~*~*~*~

Gray looked around, making sure there were no more injured people on this floor who hadn’t been attended to. Bruce had been so busy patching people back together, with help from Steve, Natasha, and Clint, Gray had gotten together with Maria Hill and Col.Rhodes to get people to the infirmary. Looking down, Gray noticed that her hands had blood on them. She decided to walk back to the little kitchen and wash her hands, if only to keep from contaminating someone if she did find anyone in need of aid.

The floor was covered with broken furniture, shattered glass, unidentifiable debris, blood, empty shell casings, and broken pieces of the walls and ceiling. Her workplace, usually buzzing with activity, was eerily quiet. It looked more like a battlefield than a break room. Gray kept her eyes moving, double checking that there were no more injured people left.

When she and Maria had reached the fourth floor, they had been assaulted with the screams of a man trapped under a beam that had fallen. Neither she or Maria had been able to do much more than try to calm the man. The beam was too heavy to lift, the sensors for JARVIS weren’t back online yet, and there had still been one of the attackers loose in the building. Then they had an idea, there was a wristband for one of Tony’s suits, laying under some rubble. Maria put it on and commanded it to unfurl a suit, so she could get the beam moved.

After that, it had gotten a lot faster taking care of the wounded. Maria could get things moved off of them, or away from them when doors were blocked. She could also carry people down who were too injured to wait for a gurney to get across all the crap on the floors. It had been pretty impressive to see her superior officer and friend, dealing with the suit.

Gray stopped dead just as she reached for the kitchen door handle. She swore she could hear something. Inclining her head, she reached to tap her ear, effectively turning up the microphone on her hearing aid. Another perk of working for Stark and SHIELD.

Crying. She was definitely hearing crying. Quiet, almost like a person who was too tired to really cry. It broke her heart. Whoever it was, they might be hurt and have been trapped down here for the past five hours. Moving quickly but silently, Gray pressed on.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she would see. Steve Rogers, sitting hunched over on the floor in his uniform pants and a messy Tshirt, his face dirty except for the slim tear tracks, and holding something. Gray looked closer. It looked like a burned up, half-melted photograph.

“Steve?”

He looked up at her and her breath stuck. She had not seen him look so lost or so young, since he found Bucky.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. Are you?”

Only Steve could be so upset, yet worrying about other people.

“I’m alright.”

Moving forward slowly, Gray crouched low, right beside her favorite Avenger. Shortly after she had been sent into the field, an explosion had killed her hearing aids, leaving her deaf and stunned. Steve had noticed, curling one of her hands into the crook of his elbow, and leading her through the smoky post-battle cityscape, back towards the quinjet. Her head had been throbbing, her eyes stinging from all the smoke, and blood coming from her ears as the hearing aids had broken and cut her about her ears.

Ever since then, she and Steve had been friends. She was one of the few people he invited to go to his 1940s style gym with him and one of the few who had talked him into coming out to do stuff outside of the Tower, as she took him to an old theatre she knew of that showed older movies on weekdays. Because of this, she recognized the item in Steve’s hand. The only photo he had of his mother, Sarah Rogers. He might have been a super hero, the First Avenger, a war veteran, member of the Greatest Generation, and one of the toughest guys she had ever known, but his mother was the most important woman in his life. And this had been the only photo he had of her.

Blonde and light eyed, smiling brightly, with a toddler-aged Steve in her lap. It had been faded from age, originally black and white now brown and beige, with dog-eared corners and a small hole from where he used to keep it pinned in his foot locker. That picture had survived a World War, being left in a records room for decades- seen only by Peggy a few times when she would check on Steve’s file, and then retrieved by Maria and Phil to give to Steve, along with copies of the files for Peggy and the Howling Commandos.

Gray put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze as his eyes stayed focused on the photograph. She could tell he wanted to truly fall apart and yet was still trying to hold himself together. Knowing him, he was probably mentally berating himself about how it was ‘only a picture’, and how he could be crying in a back little kitchen when there were people being sewn back together in Medical.

“It’s alright to be upset, Steve.”

He gritted his teeth, making his jaw work painfully. His breathing was harsh and irregular, making Gray worry he might make himself ill. She moved her hand to his back, rubbing soothing circles, just as she learned to do with her sister when she was having an anxiety attack. Careful not to crowd, but helping with a physical anchor and set at a speed that was healthier to breathe at that pace, she worked to try to help her friend.

It seemed to work, as his breathing slowed and deepened. He still seemed as if he were holding so much in, trying so hard to be the Captain rather than letting himself mourn the loss.

“Did they find everyone who needed taken to medical?”

Gray nodded.

“Yes.”, she affirmed.

“Good.”

When she let her hand down, she realized that she had probably left bloody prints all over the back of Steve’s shirt. Granted, with all the soot and grime on it, he would hardly notice. Gray stood, offering her dirty hand to Steve. Perhaps if she got him to go to his bedroom, he would let himself break down.

He took her hand numbly, his eyes straight ahead, unfocused. She guided him back up to the room he had for when he had to stay overnight at the Tower. Many an evening she had spent in there with he, Clint, and Sam, watching movies and cracking jokes. Sometimes Maria and Natasha also would be in there, and once Thor had joined. It was less fixy than most of the other rooms in the Tower, but it had sturdy furniture that looked more like an office or a nice cabin from 1935-1955.

Steve did not utter a word as they walked the stairs up to his room, leaving the two functioning elevators for those in greater need of the assistance. Gray was limping a little by the time they reached Steve’s floor, as she had banged her knee pretty badly when diving to get a gun that she spotted on the floor, hoping to use it as a back up to the one she had been carrying when she walked into the fight.

“You said you weren’t hurt?”

She almost jumped. Steve had been so quiet, she could easily have forgotten he was walking with her.

“Just a little bump or bruise. I’ll be okay.”

In Steve’s room, she found that he had not come up there to remove his jacket and shield when they got back to the Tower. It looked perfectly cared for. The bed made with military precision, the dresser tidy, the floor clean enough that the hardwood shown, and his things all lined up neatly.

“Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll come back up in a little bit, with some food and coffee?”

“Not hungry.”

“No, but if you don’t eat, then you’ll get dizzy. I’ll bring something simple.”

He nodded, still looking shell shocked.

“Steve?”

His head rose, eyes meeting hers.

“It’s okay to be upset. She was your mom.”

With that, she turned and walked out, sure that Steve would not permit himself to truly break down when he had an audience. Maybe if she had been Bucky, she could have gotten him to open up and talk about it. However, his best friend was still in the wind.

~*~*~*~*~

Natasha came in to find one of SHIELD’s demolition experts, sitting at a computer screen in the security booth. Everyone wanted to know everything about these three guys who attacked the place, however SHIELD did not usually have bomb techs handling security and background. Then Natasha realized just which one of the techs it was. Grace McClafferty.

“McClafferty.”

The young tech spun around, eyes wild. She was more comfortable around Natasha than most of the techs, however the young woman was not as close with Natasha as she was with Clint, Sam, Maria, and Phil. And certainly not as close as she was with Steve. The young woman seemed to have a natural ability to read Steve and to make him smile. They also liked to sit and sketch on the porches and rooftops together, and Steve had taken to getting she and Clint to give him Sign lessons, so he could surprise McClafferty every now and again.

“You aren’t in trouble, but why are you looking through security footage?”

“I’m looking for something.”

“If it is information about the three attackers”, Natasha raised an eyebrow, “it has already been thoroughly gone over.”

“Oh, I figured that. I’m looking for something else.”

Natasha crossed the small room to straddle a chair next to Agent McClafferty. The young woman was taller than Nat, almost as tall as Steve. She also had the build of someone who spent a lot of time swimming, climbing, and doing martial arts. Enough callouses to prove she was no stranger to work, the woman still somehow managed to seem far too young for this job. Nat blamed it on the plump cheeks and the fact that McClafferty was nearly always smiling.

“Have you seen Steve since we got back?”

“Yes. He was in the kitchens helping to make sure everyone who was injured, had gotten taken care of. We walked up to his room, he got cleaned up, I cleaned up in mine, then we had a light dinner. He seemed pretty tired, so I wanted to make sure he ate before he got dizzy and made himself sick.”

Natasha had been witness to that on a couple occasions. Steve’s body was pretty impressive when it came to dealing with tiredness, injuries, and sleep deprivation. However, if he pushed himself too long without intaking some calories, he would eventually get dizzy and then nauseous. It was not pretty.

“He asleep?”

McClafferty nodded her hear, eyes still fixed on the screen in front of her. Glancing, Nat could see that the footage was from almost a year ago. It was in Steve’s room and he was arranging his things in his room. When he opened a particular box, McClafferty suddenly switched from watching at 3X speed to watching at one-quarter speed, then made JARVIS focus in on the box in Steve’s hands. A few minutes later, Steve pulled a photo from the box.

Natasha instantly recognized the photo. Sarah Rogers, aged 26, with an 18 month old Steve on her lap. It was faded, the black and white image now appearing as if touched up with a Sepia Tone filter, the edges crinkled, and a small pin hole at the top from where Steve must have stuck it once upon a time. Even if no one had told Nat who the woman was, she could have guessed easily. Steve had inherited his mother’s eyes, her lip shape, and her smile. His hair was straighter and darker, yet that and the masculine shaping of his features, did nothing to disguise the resemblance.

Natasha was about to comment when she was interrupted by four furry feet bounding into the security booth. McClafferty spun in the chair, catching the front end of the black behemoth. McClafferty’s eyes lit up and the dog began eagerly licking her face. Nat cracked a smile. She always had liked dogs. And everyone knew Diana.

“How’d you get down here, naughty one?”

Natasha let out a sigh, despite her smile.

“Probably Clint. I swear, he is going to claim Diana as his own dog, one of these days.”

“Well, she likes him a lot but she’d miss her favorite place, and I don’t see Clint giving up that much of his bed.”

Having overheard the teasing, Natasha was aware that Diana got about 90% of McClafferty’s bed at night. Only on a couple rare occasions, had the dog slept in anyone else’s room. Once, she slept in the infirmary on a cot next to Grace when she had been injured, and once she had slept in Steve’s room up on his bed, when Grace had been gone overnight on a mission without Steve. Clint and Pepper usually took care of making sure Diana was alright, if Steve and Grace were both gone overnight. Sometimes Natasha, Bruce, or Sam had taken care of Diana.

“I still can’t believe Tony let you keep her.”

“Steve told me that they discussed it, and it was decided that Diana could stay. I think he might have found a way to bribe or blackmail Tony, but I knew better than to ask.”

Natasha was pretty sure it had been more like a threat than a bribe to allow Diana to stay, however if Steve did not feel the need to let Grace McClafferty in on it, Natasha would keep her opinion to herself. Anything the team had to do for the fluffy dog had been worth it, to see Steve’s smile as well as Clint’s, when they came back from a mission and were greet with a wagging tail.

“Sit over there. I gotta finish something, then we’ll go get some breakfast.”

Diana made a snort-like noise before going where she had been commanded to, and laying down so she could watch the two women and the door. Natasha smiled.

“Good girl.”

That earned the assassin a wag of the tail.

“What exactly are you doing, looking for the photo of Sarah Rogers?”

“Those guys blew up the locker room pretty badly. Steve had put her photo on the inside door of his locker, since he was there more often than he was in his room upstairs.”

Now it made sense. Those monsters must have destroyed his photo, as most of their lockers had been charred, mangled blobs when she had seen them yesterday. As much as Steve valued his shield and his dog tags, Natasha had no doubt the photo meant far more to him than either of those.

“I’m going to try to make a copy. I’ve never used this tech like this before, so it is slow going.”

“Here,” Natasha offered, “press there. Yes, now see the little line up there? Slide your finger across it to adjust the focus. Once you’ve got it, we might even be able to clean it up a little. Make it look like a new photo, instead of half-faded.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re good at this.”

“I’ve had to dummy up more documents than you’ve ever seen.”

Grace had to admit, it made sense. Clint had told her that if he had a nickel for every fake ID he had held for jobs, he could buy the Vatican.

“There you go. Now press the green button, and slide the white dot on the blue line back and forth until you have the crispness you want. Yeah. Like that.”

“Okay. Can we clean up the edges a little?”

“Red button, slide it down towards your hips. Yeah. Now the second red button, push it away from you. There you go.”

“Wow, I think it might actually look sharper than the actual photo ever did.”

“Hit the three grey dots and it’ll print out for you, just have to select the size when it pops up.”

Gray followed the instructions, selecting a size for Steve, and also choosing the option to send a copy to her secure drop file that Bruce made for her. That way, should Steve ever have something happen to his new copy, there would be a copy she could easily get to and make another duplicate for him. The photo printed out at a printer nearby, prompting Natasha to retrieve it and take a long look.

“I don’t think Steve inherited a thing from his father except his Y chromosome.”

Gray chuckled, agreeing.

“I can never get over how much their eyes look alike. The same kindness, the same warmth.”

“From what he’s said, she was a pistol.”

Nothing she had heard would contradict Natasha’s belief. The red-head handed the photo to Gray, offering her own knowing look.

“When are you going to give it to him?”

“I figured I’d wait until after the meeting Fury is doing to go over what we know about these guys.”

Natasha nodded, leaning against the one desk as she looked down at Gray. No matter how long they worked together or how well she got to know the Russian super heroine, Gray would never get used to that knowing, penetrative gaze.

“You care a lot about Steve, don’t you?”

She chuckled.

“How could anyone spend any amount of time with him, and not? He’s loyal to a fault, honest to a fault, kind to a fault. I wasn’t sure people like that ever had existed until I started working with you guys.”

She heard a huff of a laugh before Natasha slipped away like smoke. Gray turned back to the computer, logging out and tucking the photo into the small case she carried whenever she was working at the Tower or on one of the hellicarriers. She couldn’t hardly wait to get the photo to Steve. She never wanted to see that look in his eyes again. It had been almost as bad as the day he came back saying that Bucky was alive, and that he was gone.

“ **ALL AGENTS REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS! ALL AGENTS REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS** ”

Gray stood, quickly taking her bag and running for her station. Whatever was going on, it couldn’t be good if JARVIS was ordering everyone to their battle station.

~*~*~*~*~

Steve felt like his head was still pounding from the explosions they had thrown at the team, trying to disorient them. The three who had attacked the Tower were only a portion of the army that had been sent by yet another crazed maniac, to try to take down the Avengers and the remnants of SHIELD. There had been no casualties among the team, though most of them had some pretty serious injuries. Steve’s had mostly healed up, allowing him to help move Tony into the infirmary so he could get his leg taken care of.

“Thanks, Uncle Sam.”

Sam, holding Tony’s other shoulder, grouched under his breath. Steve was pretty sure Tony’s lower leg was broken and his ribs probably needed some attention as well. Sam was sporting a few cuts and scrapes from a rough landing when one of his wings was damaged. Bruce had still been patching people up at the Tower, so he was thankfully uninjured, as was Clint, who had been left behind with Bruce – just in case. Natasha and Wanda were helping each other limp out, since both of them had managed to hurt their knees. Gray and their pilot, Han, were walking out mostly on their own steam.

Sam and Steve worked to get Tony down to Bruce, allowing the good doctor to have his science pal. Steve insisted Sam stay and get his cuts looked at, as Steve always worried Sam was shrugging off serious injuries. A lot of harm could be done to a body at the speeds Sam flew.

“Ah, come on Uncle Sam! We can sing patriotic songs together! Cap, you know a patriotic diddy we should start with.”

Sam growled.

“Bruce, _please_ tell me he needs stitches? I’ll help you sew him up.”

“He threatened me, you heard it.”

Steve smiled, cupping a hand around behind his ear.

“I’m sorry Tony, I was close to that last explosion. I haven’t heard a thing since we got back to the jet.”

And with that, he grinned and turned to walk out. Tony rapid-fired several shots at Steve’s back, though Steve continued to act like he couldn’t hear the man. Right now, all Steve wanted was a long, hot shower, a few hours of sleep, and then a large pizza.

And, over the next 8 hours, Steve got all he had wanted. His shower had been thankfully uninterrupted, a good 8 hours in his bed at the Tower, and now a pizza from Angelo’s down the street was being brought up by JARVIS. Steve grabbed his wallet and headed to pick up the food when he noticed two things. Gray had the food, and there were way too many boxes. He counted at least three pizzas, an order of bread sticks, another box, and a 2L bottle of soda plus one of tea.

“What happened?”

“I had JARVIS tweak your order. I’m hungry and no one else around here appreciates good pizza.”

“What are we having?”

“One Pepperoni, one meat lovers, and one supreme. I got the cheesy breadsticks, an order of the cinnamon coffee thing we both love in some milk, plus I got drinks. I know you prefer the tea, so I got a thing of Dew for myself. Don’t worry, I already paid and tipped the guy.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Company?”

“You got it. Here, let me help.”

She handed him the drinks and the pizzas, keeping the dessert, bread sticks, and the bag with the napkins, silverware, and jars of sauces. It was hardly unusual for the two of them to split this meal, either at the restaurant since no one would bother them in Angelo’s small back room, or they’d order in. Gray had grown up across the street from an Italian family whose children were the first American-born generation. Down the street had been a Greek family, and across from them a Polish family. The things Gray had grown up eating had exotic sounding names, yet to her they were as normal as fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Once they had gotten settled in and the food plated, Steve began asking about some research Gray had been doing on a new explosive they had come across a couple weeks earlier. Then, somehow conversation had veered to 80s SciFi flicks.

“Oh gosh, the number of times my brother dragged that movie out, I should have the darn thing memorized backwards and forwards.”

“Not your favorite?”

“Hardly. I mean, I like it, but the Princess spends like, three- four days just running in circles around the castle trying to avoid a rapey giant with godly delusions. And all to avert a prophecy where she’d have a baby that would grow up to be the Emperor.”

“So you’re sticking with WILLOW then?”

“Heck yeah. I mean, if only cause Madmartigan was awesome and I love the Brownies. I also love Finrazel.”

He nodded.

“I liked Willow’s wife, Kya.”

“She rocks.”

Steve agreed, “I like how she tries to give Willow courage. And she knows what the risks are of the journey, of taking the baby to the wizard guy, yet she does it cause it is the right thing to do.”

Gray smiled.

“Sounds like someone else I know.”

She let out a large yawn, feeling terrible at pooping out like this. Steve smiled that amused grin, knowing well how tired she was. She had managed to disarm almost two dozen bombs the bad guys had left for them the day before. Not to mention a couple they found near Avengers Tower in the wake of the attack.

“Why don’t you go hit the hay? I can clean up.”

“I know, but we haven’t gotten an afternoon to chill for a while and I hate that I’m crapping out on you this early.”

“Gray, it’s almost midnight. That’s hardly early.”

“It is for me.”

“After what we’ve been through the past three days, I think you’re entitled to an early bedtime at least once.”

She nodded, stifling another yawn. Then she felt two hands on her elbows, helping her up from the chair.

“Come on, before I have to carry you.”

“Nah, just point me to a corner and I’ll sleep like a little puddy-tat.”

“You’ve officially spent too much time with Sam and Clint.”

She snorted.

“True. Alright. Goodnight, Steve. Sleep well.”

“You too, and thanks for the pizza. And the company.”

She smiled as they paused by the door.

“Any time, Steve. All you have to do is ask.”

She opened the door and headed out, waving over her shoulder as she went to the stairs. Turning, Steve went back to clean up from their late evening pizza party. He had the boxes and such put together for the trash when he noticed something on his dresser that had not been there before Gray’s visit. A photo. No frame, just a photo.

Walking over, Steve reached to pick it up. He was a bit shocked. His mother, with him on her lap, the photo looking as crisp and clear as if it had been taken yesterday. Gone were the dog-eared edges, the pin hole, and the sepia coloring. As Steve held it up, he felt a sticky note on the back. Turning it over, he read: _Steve, know it meant a lot to you and thought you ought to be able to have her picture. Made a copy from old security footage. Please don’t be mad? Just wanted you to have your photo back. PS- Nat helped cause I’m clueless with computers_.

Steve turned it back over, seeing his mom’s image as clear as day. It had been so long since the photo had looked that good. He ran a finger across it. The paper was much smoother and shinier than his old one had been. Now the pizza party had made more sense. She needed a way to get into his room to leave the photo, letting him have the privacy without worrying about Tony or anyone seeing him getting this.

Pulling out his phone, Steve began to text Gray, then changed his mind. Quickly tucking the picture into the pages of his favorite book, Steve headed downstairs to Gray’s little apartment. He knocked, then waited. A moment later, Gray came to the door, smiling despite the otherwise confused expression. She looked rather cute in her T-shirt with her faded high school mascot across the front and her Star Trek lounge pants big enough to almost fit Thor.

“What’s up? Is everything okay?”, she asked as she reached to pull her hearing aids out of her pocket and slide them into her ears. JARVIS always flashed the lights for her if she had her hearing aids out and someone was at the door or her phone rang, so it was not as if she needed them once she was alone in her room.

“I wanted to thank you.”

The blush on her cheeks gave her away.

“I’ve had that photo since I was a kid. Almost a hundred years old, and I… Sometimes I forget what she looked like, and I pull that out. I can’t always remember what her voice sounded like or what… But when I look at that photo, I remember exactly how it felt to be hugged by her, exactly how her soup tasted when I got sick, and how she sounded singing those old Irish lullabies. So… _thank you_. For giving that back to me.”

He could see Gray’s eyes water slightly. His normally unshakably “I don’t cry- Grace McClafferty”, was clearly tearing up. Surging forward, she hugged him tightly around the middle. Steve’s arms moved to encircle her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Then he felt a wet nose press against his shin, so he reached down to affectionately rub behind Diana’s ears. She got up on her hind legs, effectively hugging he and Gray with her front legs. The large, black mutt was just as cute and sweet as the day he and Gray brought her in from the dumpster behind Angelo’s. She had been all of 7 pounds, half of her fur missing, and every bone in her little body showing. Now she was all of 90 pounds and covered in thick, silky black fur, with a big square head, and the softest brown eyes.

“She wanted in on the hugging.”, Gray joked.

Stepping back, Gray wiped her eye with the edge of her shirt sleeve.

“What do you say to an 80s marathon?”

“Just don’t laugh if I fall asleep.”

“Ditto.”, she added, moving back to allow him in.

Steve smiled as Gray began cuing up her TV and Diana curled up on his lap, watching her master. He had not expected to have this again, friends he could go do anything with from chilling out and doing nothing, to spending the whole day talking about anything and everything. Now he had a whole team again, and he had a few good, close friends, and he had Gray.

Diana nuzzled at him, licking his chin before letting out a long breath, as if decompressing herself to become a blob of fluff on his lap. He rubbed her ears. His team, Gray, and a giant furball. And, someday, he would get Bucky back, too. For now, he would enjoy these moments with Gray, hidden away from all that came with being Captain America, one of the Avengers, a man out of time, 100 years old in the body of a 30 year old man.

Gray came back over, sitting beside him as TRON began to play. He looked over to see Gray’s face as she watched the opening. It was one of her favorites, and she had shown it to Steve before. He liked Tron and Kevin. One of these days, Gray was supposed to show him the sequel they had made almost 30 years after the first one.

By the time Kevin was seeing Tron fighting for the first time, Gray was sound asleep against Steve’s shoulder, tucked almost into a ball, her arms curled around his elbow. Diana was also asleep, snoring lightly in his lap, a small puddle of drool dampening his pant leg. Steve smiled, letting his head tip back to catch a few winks. He could get used to this. He could _very easily_ get used to this.


End file.
